Have You Ever Been Disregarded By A Recruiter?

Every candidate who's ever worked with an Agency or Corporate Recruiter will tell you that Recruiters are very busy people. There's no doubt about it.

There are daily demands and urgent deadlines to meet. Client presentations to be made and positions to fill. Candidates to contact and interviews to be made. Interruptions to recover from and much technical documenting to be done. The daily list of things to do goes on and on.

Although there are a plethora of daily work demands, a Recruiter is required to have the ability to multitask. We must have the ability to organize and prioritize our day in such a way that we are able to meet the needs of both our clients and the qualified candidates we work with.

In all of your busy-ness, have you ever been tempted to disregard or simply blow off a scheduled candidate phone interview that you've scheduled? Maybe you're meeting is taking longer then expected. Or taking a closer look at the candidate resume you feel the candidate may not be a strong fit after all. Perhaps now there are stronger candidates in your pipeline?

Whether you've asked the candidate to contact you at a specific time or you are to contact the candidate, if you've made the phone interview. Stick to it.

If you foresee there is a possibility of being late for the scheduled phone interview due to an unexpected or detained meeting, notify your candidate asap. You can send an email, text if appropriate, or call your candidate to let them know of your situation. In some cases, you may need to reschedule. Most Candidates are flexible and willing to reschedule with no problem at all.

Many years ago I was personally disregarded by a Recruiter who scheduled a phone interview and never called. I waited eagerly by the phone for the Corporate Recruiter to contact me and never heard from her again.

Needless to say, after that experience, I was kind of turned off by Recruiters.

With that said, I believe there are those 'unspoken' qualifications we don't usually see on a Recruiter's Job Description, so I thought I would create a supplemental job description here of additional vitally important competencies.

Here are just a few:

The qualified Recruiter must have the ability to follow through with candidates after scheduling a phone interview (unless something of an unexpected or emergent nature arises that is out of your control in which time you will contact the candidate asap to reschedule the phone interview).

Respect every candidate you speak to and VALUE their time as it were your own.

Ability to treat candidates as you would like to be treated.

The qualified Recruiter must have enough self-control as to reject the urge to disregard a scheduled phone interview due to the position being filled unexpectedly (in this case you would let the candidate know) or if you discover,before the scheduled call, the candidate may not be a strong match after all.

Although unexpected situations happen that can be out of our control, we can certainly control how we choose to treat the candidates we are working with.

As professionals, we can all agree that we should choose to behave in a manner that is respectful and professional. Always.

Jeanna, nice post. Common sense is not so common. (as Im sure @Keith Halperin will attest) @Steven is spot on here as well. Recruiters (corporate or agency) should be taking note here. Sure, I've had calls where I'm just too overwhelmed to do it that day, but I'll look for other times we can do it (preferably 1st thing the next day). But to not show at all? It's the basic tenet that I teach my kids "treat others how you want to be treated". It goes for adults and professionals too.

As far as deliberately "blowing off" a candidate, It would have to be a pretty dysfunctional working environment for that to be acceptable, unless of course you were a high-biller in a pretty dysfunctional agency, like where i started out many centuries, I meant "decades" ago...